Priests on Pope Ban, Pocahontas Can Thank Tobacco: Lewis Lapham

Nov. 19 (Bloomberg) -- England shipped more than 100
boatloads of settlers to Jamestown, and eight out 10 quickly
died. Often teetering on the brink of extinction, the Virginia
colony was finally saved by tobacco.

(To listen to the podcast, click here.)

Arriving in 1610, John Rolfe planted seeds from Trinidad
and Venezuela. By the time he returned to England 6 years later
with his wife, Pocahontas, and his first shipment of Virginia
leaf, London had more than 7,000 tobacco houses where nicotine
lovers could indulge their taste for the exotic weed supplied by
Spain. The highest quality sold for its weight in silver.

It was a worldwide trend: the Mughal emperor in Delhi was
an enthusiast, as were sailors in Istanbul and farmers in Sierra
Leone. In Manchuria, the Khan Hongtaiji tried to stamp out
smoking when his soldiers traded their weapons for tobacco. Pope
Urban VIII banned smoking in church after complaints that
priests were not even putting down their lighted cigars to
celebrate mass.

Stimulating, slightly naughty, highly addictive, tobacco
was the first global craze to emerge from the new world. Now,
more than a billion people are in thrall to its smoky pleasures.

I spoke with Charles C. Mann, author of “1493: Uncovering
the New World Columbus Created,” on the following topics:

1. Ecological Convulsions

2. Native Catastrophe

3. Silver Strike

4. Slave Trade

5. Columbian Exchange

To buy this book in North America, click here.

(Lewis Lapham is the founder of Lapham’s Quarterly and the
former editor of Harper’s magazine. He hosts “The World in
Time” interview series for Bloomberg News.)